Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince - Softcover

Hahn, Alex

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0823077497 ISBN 13: 9780823077496

Publisher: Billboard Books, 2004

Synopsis

Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince is the definitive biography of one of the most talented and enigmatic musicians of our time, a figure who has seized international attention for decades and will continue to do so, both for his artistic talent and his bizarre behavior. While a handful of quasi-biographical efforts have been undertaken on Prince, Possessed is the first full-length, full-scale biographical treatment. Drawing on sources unavailable to other authors, it is the first book to fully analyze the creative legacy and unveil the psychology of this tortured, messianic artist whose ceaseless reinventions have at times rendered him a profoundly original artist and at other threatened to make a mockery of himself and his music. Blending biographical storytelling, pop cultural history, and music scholarship, the book will appeal to a broad general audience as well as to music fans.

Author Alex Hahn, a journalist who has written for The Boston Globe and The San Francisco Chronicle, taps key sources - such as friends, employees, and industry insiders - to place readers at the scene of some of the artist's most important recording and song writing sessions; relate how his compulsive sexual behavior led to revolving-door romances with Kim Basinger, Carmen Elektra, Vanity, and others; reveal that Prince on many occasions plagiarized band members' musical ideas; and explain why he has become such a paranoid, vindictive, and isolated figure. The book also draws upon the hundreds of interviews given by Prince over his career.

The book contain 30 high-quality photographs of Prince and his associates from all points of his career.

Possessed also contains the most detailed appendix of song and recording session information ever assembled for a pop musician, including information about Prince's vast canon of unreleased music and the hundreds of songs he has written for other pop artis

About this title

About the Author

Alex Hahn, a resident of Boston, has written for the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle. Also an attorney, Hahn defended Uptown, the leading Prince fanzine, in a suit brought by the artist himself.

From Publishers Weekly

The alien androgyny, the spiritual eroticism, the royal conceit: the outsized persona of the artist currently known as Prince fascinates on numerous levels. In this detailed biography by journalist and attorney Hahn, anecdotes of a personal nature mix with close readings of Prince's musical output, producing few big secrets but plenty of insight. Prince's early days are recounted as a frenzy of musical education, with influences ranging from the funky dexterity of Sly Stone, to the tight perfectionism of James Brown, to the spiritual yearning of Stevie Wonder. (Hahn also names a less obvious influence in Joni Mitchell, whose lyrics Prince apparently purloined sometimes whole cloth.) The young Prince also absorbs the mechanics of the studio like a sponge. When the child prodigy meets with early success, signing to Warner Brothers at age 19, he blossoms into the personality of flamboyant and controlling self-absorption that fans have now watched mutate for over two decades. Constructed from interviews with producers, sound engineers, journalists and publicists, though not as frequently with Prince's inner circle, the book portrays Prince as a kind of outsider artist, eccentric and self-centered to the extreme, rarely leaving the enchanted, Minneapolis garden of his childhood, where he has managed to build himself into a living, protean god. This is a truly American story of cranky self-invention. B&w photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Billboard Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0823077497
• ISBN 13: 9780823077496
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288